Paradise Found: Cain (Paradise Stories Book 2) (28 page)

“He’s not here.” He paused. “What’s going on?” His voice was filled with concern as he came forward, extending his hands to encircle my arms. I took a deep step back, willing him not to touch me. His hands dropped to his side and closed into fists.

“Did you know?” I questioned, my voice rising and breaking. “Did you know?”

Cain looked to the side.

“Speak,” I demanded.

“All I know is Kursch had been the one to pull the trigger. He was there as back-up. They were only going to hassle your parents, scare them a little bit. Your father owed Atom money. Kursch was recently returned from combat, and his finger still eager; the gun was his voice of reason. It wasn’t meant to happen. Your mother stepped forward and Kursch misunderstood.” The words spilled out of him.

“How could you keep this from me?” I yelled. “If you didn’t know at first, why didn’t you come to me when you learned the truth?”

“And risk losing you?” he sighed, rubbing a hand over his short hair.

“I’m already lost to you!” I yelled. My hands flailed out to the side and slapped down on my thighs. “Why can’t you just tell me the truth? Tell me what I need to know. He killed my parents. My parents!” I screamed at Cain. “For what?” I continued to rant. “To please your father?”

Cain looked away again. I didn’t need to stay. I wasn’t going to get answers.
Fuck it
, I thought. I had enough.

This time Cain caught me as I stepped forward.

“Calm down,” he snipped.

“Calm down!” I yelled. “Calm down?” I screamed. My voice cracked. He pulled me to him and I tried to force him back. My hand came up to push him off me, but he trapped it between his chest and mine. My other hand raised in a weak attempt to left hook the side of his head. His hand caught mine in a tight grip. The rearing head of the cobra engulfed my small fingers and lowered my hand, pinning it between us as well.

“Easy,” he soothed, although his voice was gruff.

My whole body trembled and I opened my mouth to scream. My teeth rested on the shoulder of his Cain-scented tee. I prepared to bite, to taste the evil he represented. The piercing noise strangled out of me as I open-mouth bit him, choking on a sob. A debilitating, gut-clenching sob. My knees collapsed and I cried out. My breath caught and struggled, as inhaling was difficult between the cries. In an instant, the back of my knees were swept up, and I rested against his chest while he carried me to his living room. He sat on the couch, holding me in his lap, while I wept for dead parents and those that killed them. How could a simple life become such a mess? Where did such evil come from?

As my gulping sobs lowered to hiccupped sniffles, Cain brushed back my hair and rubbed circles into my back. He didn’t speak. He didn’t dare try to comfort me with words. Still struggling to catch my breath, I sat up, balancing on his thigh.

“I need to go,” I said, determined that I had to get away from him. I had to remove myself from him, his house, his life. I didn’t want what he offered me. He wasn’t even offering anything any longer. I would never be his wife. I didn’t want this life.

“You can’t go,” he said calmly. “Not like this.”

Struggling with him again, I attempted to stand, bracing awkwardly on his thigh and his chest to push upward. I disentangled myself and stood by his knees. He looked up. That chiseled face that could hold firm, look stern, and smirk sexily, looked at me with an expression I couldn’t recognize on his edgy face.

“You can’t keep me here,” I barked, looking down at him, but lacking the physical strength to move.

“You came to me, remember?” he snipped, then cleared his throat. I stepped away from him, but his quick hands darted forward and grabbed the back of my thighs.

“You came to me?” His tone turned serious, the words twisted, and the puzzlement proved he was rethinking his accusation. “I’m not letting you go, not like this. You’re too upset.” He stood so abruptly, I stumbled back, knocking into a low table in front of the couch.

He turned my body and forced me to sit down. “Stay,” he snapped. He crossed the room to flip a switch to start the gas-fueled fireplace. Suddenly, I was mesmerized by the flames. Was hell real? I questioned. Did we burn there for our sins? What sin had I committed that I must walk through this valley of pain?
I fell in love
, I scolded myself. I fell in love with the devil himself and all his accomplices.

I hadn’t noticed he left me alone.

“Sofie?” he questioned somewhere behind the couch. I had slipped off the cushions and sat pressed against the base of it, still concentrating on the yellow-orange flames that danced gleefully, tempting me to join in their fiery celebration.

The table before me slid out of the way, and a blanket was spread on the floor. A glass of wine was handed to me, and without thinking, I accepted the sweet juice, guzzling it down my parched throat like it was a welcome cup of water. My eyes never left the flames. The wine doused my insides, which burned like the fire before me.

I was gently tugged forward and my jacket was removed. My body felt like a rag doll and my limbs flopped with each motion. I was carefully pressed to the floor, and my head was lifted to rest on a cushion. The pressure of his hands on my back began in soothing circles. I remained unresponsive until the lower portion of my sweater was raised and warm hands caressed my skin.

“Cain,” my rumbled voice warned.

“You need to relax a little. Just concentrate on my hands.” His large fingers continued the delicate massage of my lower back and my eyes closed willfully. Internally, I groaned.

“I know what I’m doing,” he said quietly.

“I bet you do,” I muttered.

“Not like that,” he sighed, but a terse tease in his tone was clear. “After a fight, sometimes the trainer needs to work my tight muscles.”

“How advantageous for you,” I grumbled, not certain the sound left my lips.

“My trainer’s a man,” he smirked.

“How disappointing,” I moaned, as his hands traveled upward.

“Sofie,” he warned. Within minutes, my body was relaxing. My eyes concentrated on the flames before slowly lowering.

“Here,” he muttered, as he dragged me upright enough to remove my sweater. I should have protested. This could lead nowhere good, but the pressure of his fingers on the tension of my back made me lose focus. Swirled designs danced along tight muscles, over shoulder blades, and down my sides. Thinking about it, the tender pressure felt like a snake slithering across my skin, pulsing as it twisted and curled along the path of my body. Skilled fingers unsnapped my bra and my arms instinctively slipped to my sides, bracing the loose material to stay in place.

“Sofie,” he warned softly this time. His hands nudged my arms to relax, and he slipped the straps down my shoulders to work the tension there. His fingers were like his kiss, hard and pressured, and just the right nip to weaken me. But I was already prone on the floor in a compromising position, immobilized by the work of his fingertips and the flat of his palm.

“My father beat me as a child,” he spoke, and my eyes opened wide, ending their battle to close. Alert to his words that broke the silence, I attempted to sit up, but his hands forced me gently down. He was quiet again. He couldn’t say to my face what he wanted to speak. Either way the words weren’t going to be easy.

“I’m not sure how it started. A broken vase perhaps. The exit of my mother, definitely.” He paused by taking a deep breath, but nimble fingers continued to work over my body.

“She asked me to protect Abel. No, told me, I was his only hope. He wasn’t as strong as me, and she begged me to watch them both.”

It took me a moment to remember that Cain had a younger sister, someone he rarely spoke of.

“The only way to save them was to take the beatings for them. Evie was gone so quickly she didn’t suffer any. It was Atom’s only mercy that he didn’t strike a three-year-old. He didn’t spare the rod for his sons, but the cane would have broken Abel. He wouldn’t have been able to handle it. He was so torn up by our mother’s disappearance. Only she didn’t disappear, she left. He made her go.”

His hands worked more aggressively, but the pressure felt soothing. His fingers rubbed over my upper arm before dragging tenderly down to my forearm. He tugged each finger one at a time, then slipped his fingers through mine, for the briefest of seconds. Then he moved to my opposite arm to repeat the action. He took his time over my left ring finger, circling and extending it. Up and down, he slid several times over the length of that finger, paying it more attention than the others. It wasn’t lost on me that my ring was missing. However, I was lost to his focus on my hands when he continued.

“She had an affair. Actually, I think she was tempted into it. Fell from grace, so to speak, after so much time around the ring. Another fighter lured her in, and my mother took the bait. She became addicted to drugs through him, and addicted to him, my father would say. He blamed her, but she was only trying to gain his attention. He was so focused on winning. He didn’t notice what was in front of him, and how it was slipping away from him.”

He exhaled and moved his hands to my feet, slowly removing my sandals and pushing my leggings up my calves as best he could. Fingers squeezed and rubbed over a muscle that tensed with the touch. The pressure was a teasing tickle as he gently caressed the pad of my foot, before working a tight press on each toe. My eyes closed again in ecstasy.

“The first time I took the hit, I talked back to him. I covered for Abel. I can’t remember how that beating felt physically, but I remember how it felt emotionally. I was angry inside, like my blood boiled. I wanted to strike out at him, but I was no force against him. I was a child.”

His voice broke.

“But I took those hits, and when I stopped whimpering, and stopped fighting him, I had what my mother hadn’t. I had his attention; it was negative, but I craved it. I wanted it from him. He took me to the gym and I started to train. I took all that energy, that hatred, and I learned to fight. He trained me, despite beating me. I learned from the master and I never struck back, ever. Until one day I did. Only once. He told me he was proud of me. I was a man, he said, and smiled. He actually smiled with pride. I was fifteen, and from that moment on, I had another kind of attention from him. I took what he gave in hopes to keep that attention.”

My leggings could go no higher and he flipped me, eventually. My bra lay haphazardly over my breasts, but he ignored it. His hands came to the waist of my leggings and pulled them down. Mechanical in motion, he wasn’t looking at me in a sensual manner. He was focused on his tale; my body was only a means of concentration.

Beginning at my shins, he worked upward again while he continued.

“He gave me a hooker for my sixteenth birthday,” he snorted. “I wasn’t even a virgin by then.” Penetrating cold filled me with his words, but he didn’t even shiver at the thought.

“I worked for him. I slaved for him. I wanted him to be proud. I wanted him to be … happy,” he paused, staring at my knee as if he surprised himself at the word he used.

“Nothing was enough. Nothing was
good
enough. I pushed myself, but I lost myself. I was becoming him. My disappointment in anything. My displeasure in everything. I was never satisfied.”

His hands came to my thighs. He shifted his body to separate my feet and slid his big knees between my legs. Large hands squeezed my thighs, working upward. While I was listening intently to each word, mesmerized by the depth of his honesty about his history, I was also losing my concentration as adept fingers worked higher, harder, and closer to a place that hadn’t received devotion, in a while.

“I was going to become him. I can see that looking back. The death of Montana. It changed things for me. It brought me to you.” He looked up at me and stilled his hands. “Everything changed when I met you.”

Heat warmed my face. His expression was one of confusion, like he couldn’t believe it himself, hadn’t admitted to himself, that everything changed that night he sat at the wine bar.

My legs were spread open, almost harshly and he crept forward on his knees as his fingers began again their ministration on my thighs. Sprawled before him, I was undeniably exposed. There was something in those dark eyes that shifted. His concentration returning to the present. He twisted my legs in a way that I opened further, allowing for the girth of his knees between my thighs. He bent my knees to rest over his.

“It’s been a long time,” he said, eyeing my center, which I was certain he could see visually pulsing in rapid rhythm. His glare licked me and split me in half, despite the slip of underwear covering me. My center wept, the moisture darkening the cotton between my legs. Thumbs pressed dangerously close to a place that called to him.

“How long has it been?” he asked, still trained on my core, his voice roughening.

“A while,” I whispered. His eyes flicked up to mine.

“How long?” he asked, narrowing his attention on me.

“You know,” I sighed, breaking away from the dark glare threatening to pin me to the floor.

“Tell me,” he hissed.

My head spun back to face him. My eyes narrowed in response.

“You know,” I said. “It was the last time we were together.” I froze with the thought. Had he forgotten because he’d been with others after me? Had our time been so inconsequential to him that he couldn’t remember the last time we were together?

He exhaled in relief. “Thank fuck,” he muttered.

“What about you?” I snipped, losing my compassion for a moment, trying to squeeze my knees back together, attempting to cover myself. He didn’t have a right to question me. His strength forced my legs to remain open. My knees pointed in opposite directions and my hot core faced him. His eyes drifted downward.

“It’s been as long for me,” he mumbled softly. “I told you, you’re the only one I want.”

“What?” My voice cracked in surprise.

“I haven’t been with anyone else. Not since I found you again. There’s been no one but you,” he exhaled, letting his eyes slowly draw up my middle to my partially covered breasts. He paused to release one thigh and tugged the bra forward, exposing me completely. I was more than naked to him.